Techniques for culturing myocardial cells from rats (Harary et al., 1963, Exp. Cell. Res. 29:451-456), chicks (Friedman et al., 1987, J. Nucl. Med. 28:1453-1460), guinea pigs (Nakajima et al., 1989, Circ. Res. 64:297-303) and cats (Follmer et al., 1987, J. Physiol. 384:169-197) have been established and utilized for cardiac muscle research.
The ability to expand cultures of fetal, but not adult, human myocardial cells has been reported. Halbert et al. (1973, Life Sci. 13:969-975) observed the growth of dissociated fetal myocardiocytes in culture following previous disclosures of fetal cardiac explant cultures (Garry et al. 1948, Am. J. Physiol. 152:219-224; Chang et al., 1972, Circ. Res. 30:628-833). Claycomb et al. (1989, In Vitro Cell. Dev. Biol. 25:1114-1120), using human fetal atrial and ventricular cardiac muscle cells, established cultures of dissociated myocardiocytes with spontaneous contraction and ultrastructural characteristics of myocardial cells including organized sarcomeres, intercalated discs,and transverse tubules with couplings. Also, they demonstrated atrial granules in atrial cells and electron dense granules associated with the golgi cisternae in ventricular cells.
There have been reports of limited proliferation, or evidence of proliferative potential, of non-human myocardial cells in culture. Nag et al. in 1983 described the successful long term culture of cardiac myocytes from adult rats (Nag et al., 1983, J. Mol. Cell. Cardiol. 15:301-317) and observed morphologic changes reminiscent of embryonic or neonatal cardiac muscle cells. Earlier, Rumyantsev in 1974 reported proliferative activity of a small number of atrial myocardiocytes after experimental infarction of the left ventricle in rats while ventricular cells in the infarcted area showed no such response (Rumyantsev, 1974, Virchows Arch. B. 15:357-378). He noted that adult mammalian atrial myocardiocytes are found to proliferate in response to massive ventricular infarction, crush injury to the atrial wall, burning of the atrial wall, or hypoxia.